butterfliesandmoths

Ah. Another long night. This time, it included getting well and thoroughly soaked in the rain (while driving the scooter home, thanks for asking). Good fun though.

I have been dabbling with a few too many things off late, and I’m afraid The Daily Critter’s suffered a little as a result: often I end up getting to it too late in the day to do anything really good.

However. I’ll actively try and avoid that from tomorrow onwards – and as a pledge I’ll start off with a good post tomorrow. Y’know. Something with an actual story of sorts.

Remember the Queen of Thorns? A beautiful, big, green spider that had made its home in the tulsi plants in front of my door? Well, during one of the heavy spells of rain last month, the lynx spider skedaddled, leaving only what photographs I’d taken, behind.

Today I saw this little moth seated in the same place, open to the rain and uncaring. I absolutely love the colour patterns and am cristening it the Tiger Moth until someone tells me otherwise. The little droplet of water on its head is like the pièce de résistance cherry on a very unusual cake.

There are some spider-heavy posts coming up, so thought that I would keep y’all well rested until then. (Read: I’m feeling lazy today, so I though I’d just post a pretty picture with little text on it.)

I realised that I have a few macro pictures that pre-date my obsession with spiders and all things many-legged. I took snaps of this butterfly(?) just outside my house back in August last year. Very colourful, I’d found three “freshly hatched” butterflies, they were still struggling a bit with their flight, and I even found their cocoon shells (see picture 3).

Though very colourful, I’m still not convinced that they’re butterflies though. Usually, butterflies have their dorsal (the “top face”) face of the wings all colourful, ventral not so much. Here, ventral’s bright and the dorsal’s a pale white (picture 2). My verdict – moth! And I love moths.

Butterflies are pretty and all, but I’m quite partial to moths. When they’re not all over my laptop screen, that is.

When seen during the day, moths are often far more restful, pretty okay with just sitting around. Unlike the adult-onset hyperactive twits that the butterflies seem to be. This particular moth (damned if I can identify even one of them,) posed for as long as I was shooting, allowing me to get within a couple of centimetres without getting fluttery.

Also, is it just me or are we all a bit weird when it comes to hair and fur? A furry dog or a cat – so warm and fuzzy. A hairy spider gives us the creeps. Sure, I’m not asking you to pet one here (although I suppose people do do that with tarantulas,) but its a point of principle. Let’s end this hypocrisy with hair and fur! Embrace your inner furry.